SUMMARY: TTIC is an upcoming company in the PC enthusiast cooling market. Today we are taking a look at their NPH-201 heatsink for the AMD Athlon XP processor. It offers a new technology called "Heat Column" which provides adequate cooling with low noise output with just a 70mm fan.
The sink used in this cooler is unlike most you are probably familiar with. It consists of what is called a Heat Column and 33 fins to handle the task of heat dissipation. The entire setup is copper except for the shroud and the steel base used to attach the cooler to your mainboard. Total weight of the sink (without fan) is a whopping 570 grams! It goes without saying that you’ll want to remove this bear of a cooler before taking your rig to a LAN or similar activity.
The Base
The base of the unit consists of the steel mounting platform and the bottom portion of the Heat Column. Unlike other coolers, the metal outside the copper has nothing to do with the cooling process. It is only there for mounting purposes.
The surface of the base was very smooth without any grooves from machining able to be felt with the finger. Though not polished to a shiny finish, there were no defects noted that would get in the way of an optimal contact between the processor core and the base of the cooler.
The Fan
The fan included with the cooler in its default configuration is a very smallish 70mm x 70mm x 15mm model and doesn’t give one a lot of confidence in its ability to really cool a performance-minded system. It spins at 3600 RPM and puts out just over 31 CFM airflow at 31 dBA. While this isn’t the absolute quietest fan out there, the noise levels are far below what we’re used to seeing attached to a quality air cooling setup.
What if you want to go ahead and use a more powerful fan and don’t care for the 70mm size?
No problem! If you’ll look closely at the protective shroud you will see some holes outside the 70mm fan installed. This allows you to use an 80mm fan instead, which gives you a great deal more flexibility in fan choices. What’s more, there are matching holes on the opposite side of the shroud to allow a double fan setup. The choices are nearly limitless!
The Clip
The clipping mechanism is nothing new or innovative, but handles the task at hand without any problems. I was able to easily able to attach the cooler to the socket without having to resort to using a screwdriver. Even with an easy installation, the heavy heatsink was firmly in place and showed no signs of wiggling or moving.
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